Partway through a crowded hearing Tuesday involving multiple defendants in the alleged Oath Keepers conspiracy to attack Congress on Jan. 6, a federal judge said the scene reminded him of “Hollywood Squares,” the former hit TV show with a set featuring a stacked grid of celebrities.
Continue reading “Plea Discussions Ongoing In Ballooning Oath Keepers Conspiracy Case”
Are you having trouble keeping up on the press discussion of a ‘lab leak’ theory of the origins of COVID? Here are a few pointers.
Broadly speaking, there’s seldom been an example of a more rapid shift in public opinion or rather elite conventional wisdom in the face of so little changing evidence. A bunch of right wing or right-adjacent columnists are running around high-fiving each other and patting themselves on the back about how “the media” got it wrong.
On balance, this isn’t true. What happened is that from the outset China-hawks who were largely out to defend Donald Trump made a series of baseless accusations about COVID either being a bioweapon or the accidental release of a Chinese biological warfare weapon. When that got shot down (there’s strong genomic evidence against this), they retreated to a more conventional lab accident as their pet theory. The best one can say is that most journalists became reflexively skeptical to all such claims since they were mainly coming from people who are professional liars with obvious axes to grind.
Continue reading “Some Thoughts on the COVID ‘Lab Leak’ Theory”
A few prominent Republicans and Trump allies opted to celebrate one of America’s more patriotic federal holidays by hanging out with QAnon supporters and promoting the big lie.
The leader of the right-wing militia group the Oath Keepers spoke just days after Election Day about a potentially violent conflict involving Trump supporters and a presidential declaration of the Insurrection Act, a new superseding federal indictment alleged.
Disgraced ex-Trump adviser Michael Flynn tried to claim on Monday that he wasn’t throwing his support behind a potential coup in the U.S. like the one that occurred in Myanmar in February.
Continue reading “Flynn Insists He Wasn’t Endorsing A Coup When He Endorsed A Coup”
Fox News host Sean Hannity reportedly played a part in writing a campaign ad for former President Donald Trump’s failed 2020 election campaign.
Continue reading “Report: Hannity Played Role In Writing ‘Swamp Creature’ Trump Campaign Ad”
I took a peek at Joe Biden’s poll numbers yesterday evening. They’re holding up pretty well four months into his presidency. 538 has a composite approval rating this morning of 53.6%. By longterm historical standards that’s anemic for an incoming president. It’s decent by more recent standards. But what jumps out more than anything is the stability. Biden’s support has undulated only slightly in a narrow two or three point band. Indeed, Biden looks like the inverse of Donald Trump – with support in the low-mind 50s and disapproval hovering just over 40%. The same basic division is in place from last year to this, as though nothing had happened – except that that narrow majority – mid-low-50s – has their president in office.
President Joe Biden will announce plans on Tuesday to narrow the racial wealth gap and invest in Black businesses during his visit to Tulsa commemorating the centennial of its horrific massacre of hundreds of Black residents in its Greenwood district.
Continue reading “Biden Aims To ‘Narrow’ Racial Wealth Gap On Centennial Of Tulsa Massacre”
If it were anyone else but Benjamin Netanyahu it would be 100% clear his Prime Ministership is over and a new government will be sworn in later this week. That still seems highly likely. But since it is Benjamin Netanyahu, who has 900 political lives and has managed to remain Prime Minister after multiple losses and stalemate elections, no one can be sure.
Even with all this it is remarkable to watch the wild and desperate moves from Netanyahu and his supporters to upend what seems increasingly close to inevitable. They have unleashed a fusillade of attacks and incitement against Naftali Bennett and his political ally Ayelet Shaked, both members of the religious zionist Yamina party. Not a few have compared the current climate of incitement against these two and Yair Lapid, the architect of the new government, to that in weeks preceding the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995. Israel’s internal security service, the Shin Bet, has ordered increased security for Bennett and Shaked. Lapid already has a security detail as head of the opposition.
Gov. Greg Abbott (R) announced that he will veto the part of the state budget that funds the legislature, seeming retaliation for Texas Democrats’ walkout late Sunday that let them at least temporarily kill Republicans’ voting overhaul.
